


A Bad Mother

by Sheiburger



Series: The Family [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Family Angst, Mommy Issues, Sociopathy, i really don't know what to put here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheiburger/pseuds/Sheiburger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate timeline to A Good Son. Nora is a bad mother. A very bad mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bad Mother

**Author's Note:**

> So.... I'm actually sort of shocked that A Good Son actually got any likes and it really encouraged me to post A Bad Mother. I kinda am a little iffy with these works myself, but, uh, thanks guys for your support!

I am a bad mother.

When Shaun was born I promised a thousand promises. Dreamed of a thousand worlds. Begged for a million different paths. What happened in the scarce few months I actually had with him felt perfect. A dream. With both he and my husband at home nothing could phase me. This was my castle and here I was invincible.

And then the bombs dropped.

I am a bad mother.

The rush to the vault felt very surreal, but I remember everything. Maybe because it still feels like yesterday to me? But I remember all the same. The color of the onsie that I had dressed Shaun in that morning. The comforting scent of Nathan's cologne. The sheer unadulterated joy and panic I felt at the split descion earlier to sign up for the vault and the subsequent loss if I had stalled one more minute. How the sky went red and darkened as the blasts fell to close to home for comfort. Shaun in Nate's arms.

I am a bad mother.

Everything in the Vault, or what I saw of it the first few seconds, was very sterile. Very clean, with its staff overly friendly and....

Wrong. It felt wrong. Even then I knew something was up. But I figured then it had to be better than what was going on above us. So for my family I soldiered on. This was our home now. I had to make this my castle, be strong for the sake of my family, become invincible. So I stepped through the gate, put on the vault suit, and kissed Shaun and Nate before I got into the decontamination pod.

Which was wrong.

I am a bad mother.

The cold seeped into my bones, and for a few minutes I felt it biting into my skin. It was very brief, and I recall wondering if this was how 'decontamination' was supposed to feel this way before I blacked out. Again minutes passed for me and I woke up to what sounded like sandpaper scraping across a blackboard. A man was speaking and I groggily tried to comprehend what was going on. I was still cold and trying to understand what was happening when I heard Nate.

I started to struggle in earnest. Pounding at the glass and screamed obscenities as I watched the monster take my baby. And then. The gun. The shot. Time slowed and suddenly the cold wasn't making me numb as I watched Nate's boy slump in the pod. A high pitched noise was emanating all around me. I must have been screaming. The monster handed over the baby to another and leered up at me in my pod and I slammed my palms against the door vainly, as if sheer force could open my lock. The monster laughed at me and I fell back to sleep, flipping it off.

I am a bad mother.

I woke up again and this time the only thing I could feel was blind rage and despair. I remember unlocking Nate in the hope he could still be alive and I could save him. He wasn't and I couldn't and I completely blacked out in my anger. When I came too I was standing in blinding sunlight, surrounded by skeletons and dead trees. An irrational sense of hope gripped me as I saw the buildings in the distance an I thought of my home. My castle. My fortress of invincibility. If I could get there this nightmare would fall away. I would be invincible once more and have my husband and son.

It didn't happen.

And I am a bad mother.

Reality took hold of me an my anger once more became a driving force in my life. I became separate from my body as I cut a path of destruction and vengeance as wide and long as California through the common wealth. Surely the woman with the sub machine gun, pistol, and several knives couldn't be me. The woman who blasted a man with a mini nuke when he refused to give up Shaun's location had to be someone else. The woman who seized an old fort by the bay and ruled there must be another woman. Another man's wife, or, hell, a warrior goddess, but not me. 

It was me. I had my castle, and my warriors that fought for me, and finally I was invincible. But in the weak moments, in the dangerous dark of night when sheer exhaustion claimed wreaked havoc on my still very vulnerable body, I was me. It hurt to be me. To be so very, very, very close to Shaun and still so very, very, very far away. In those moments the weak part of me found solace in the arms of Preston Garvey.

I am a bad mother.

It was disturbingly easy to let my guard down in those dark moments and how ready and willing Garvey became to snatch at my moments of softness. I let him have them, knowing they were far and few enough in-between that in reality they didn't matter at all. Hollow words meant to fill a space where my husband no longer could. I wore my wedding ring like a badge of respect and honor during my waking hours, the hours in which I became detached. But at nights it came off an my body belonged to Garvey.

I was a lie. But the horrible part was when I went to visit the vault that had become a mass grave. Garvey had insisted on going with me. I ignored him for the most part until I stood before Nate. Preston said something, I can't remember what, but it hung in the air and it felt as though Nate's spirit agreed and approved.

Before long my weak moments and petty lies turned into my strength and truths. I was really falling in love with Preston Garvey and that soothed my otherwise unseasonable anger.

I am a bad mother.

Soon it came down to it. I had to find Shaun. And I got my way into that Institute. The invincible warrior goddess facade back in place. That bastard who lead that place seemed to be waiting for me and kept taunting me closer. And I am ashamed to admit this but it worked. And I finally saw Shaun. And the warrior goddess shattered as the mother demanded her place.

But it was not Shaun. A fucking Synth. You couldn't swing a goddamn cat with out hitting them in the common wealth apparently. And then 'Father' had the balls to show his face. And make those wild claims. Right when I was still in my vulnerable moment. Like he knew. Like he knew that soft me wouldn't kill him outright.

But still I believed him. Even the warrior goddess could not deny the resemblance to Nate.

I am a bad mother.

When I got back to Preston, to my castle, and my invincibility I had a choice to make. My sixty year old son that I barely knew and was probably a sociopath (like his mother, but I refused to dwell on that), or my new life in the common wealth with my new love?

I am a bad mother,

And that stranger lost. He was and wasn't my son. For me to continue, my old life had to die. All of my old life.

I am a bad mother.

I returned in the heat of battle to find the old man dying. He glared at me, spoke of betrayal. I felt only a pang of regret before continuing to plant the bomb to destroy the Institute. 

I am a bad mother.

Later, as my people rejoiced in my castle, I ducked into the bed chambers, without Preston.

I am a bad mother.

Quietly I crept to the cot pushed farthest to the wall. Our newest member was sleeping soundly, the days events no doubt draining to him. I sat down quietly as I studied him. My last weak decision. 

I am a bad mother.

I brushed my fingers through his hair. A noise at the door caught my attention, and I looked to see Garvey standing there with a soft smile. I smiled back.

I am a bad mother.

But for this Synth, for my new son, maybe I could learn to be better.


End file.
